


Everybody Everybody (Wants to be Loved)

by Bus_Kids_Burgade (Inthemorninglight)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: (or pre qp if you like), (who incidentally is not straight), Academy Era, Asexual Character, Other, Queerplatonic Relationships, ace identity, biromantic ace fitz, bisexual aro-spec simmons with all the language and queer theory, dinosaur pancakes, everyone wants to be luke skywalker, non-explicit qp fitzsimmons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 06:13:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14909879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inthemorninglight/pseuds/Bus_Kids_Burgade
Summary: Academy-ish, when Simmons expresses a sudden desire to wrangle her first kiss (from a random stranger in the Boiler Room), Fitz is left with an unpleasant feeling he can't quite unravel. But the root is not what most people would assume.





	Everybody Everybody (Wants to be Loved)

**Author's Note:**

> Some Ace rep for pride month because I dunno I just don't see enough. Thanks to AchillesMonkey for the beta!

He’s sitting at the bar, staring hard into his second beer, and thinking longingly of Dorothy’s ruby slippers. 

 

Fitz would give a great deal to be home right now, under the quilt his mum sent him for his last birthday, thoughts drowned out by a Star Wars marathon. Instead, he’s in the middle of the Boiler Room with music pounding in his ears and strobe lights and far too many scantily-clad colleagues and -

 

It’s not the Boiler Room’s fault, he acknowledges, gulping down another mouthful of alcohol in an attempt to soften the atmosphere. The Boiler Room is actually a grand place for the occasional foray into social settings. Despite the music and the pool tables and the flashing lights, it’s still a hang-out for geniuses, and the casual banter about quantum mechanics and drunken-equation-graffiti make him feel quite at home. 

 

But not tonight. Tonight Simmons dragged him out here for a very specific reason, and he can grouse about his general aversion to people and noise and drinking all he wants, but he knows the true source of the uncomfortable knot in his stomach. 

 

“I’m going to kiss someone,” Simmons declared when she burst into their apartment that afternoon, and that’s when it had started. 

 

She tried on six different outfits, parading them in front of him and debating the prudish or revealing qualities of each one, grilling him for an opinion he simply could not give her. Then she begged, bargained, and cajoled him into coming with her on this - in his opinion - ludicrous mission. Thus here he sits, keeping a wary eye out for her across the bar while she attempts to wrangle her first kiss. 

 

“I’m eighteen and no one’s ever so much as pecked me on the cheek,” she complained when he inquired after this sudden urge for physical contact. “It’s about time, don’t you think?”

 

This sentence yanked particularly hard on the knot in his gut for reasons he has yet to examine. He casts another glance in Simmons’ direction, making sure she’s still attempting to chat up the new biological engineering recruit and not being whisked off to some dark alley. She’s laughing a little too hard at something he just said, but outside of that, everything seems fine. 

 

“You should kiss her.” 

 

Fitz jumps half a mile at the slightly-slurred voice suddenly in his ear. One of the robotic engineering fellows who’ve been doing shots at the other end of the bar all night has sidled up next to him and nods with a knowing smirk in Simmons’ direction. 

 

The suggestion is so incomprehensible it renders Fitz speechless for several long seconds, and yet, it is so obnoxiously predictable it ignites a flare of outrage in his throat. This bloke thinks he’s  _ jealous _ . Just because he came to a bar with his pretty best friend and she’s flirting with other guys. 

 

“You’ve just gotta do it, man,” the robotics guy tells him sagely, clapping him on the shoulder before Fitz can vent any of his indignation. “Girls… they like confidence. You gotta make the first move or she’s never gonna look at you the way you want her to.” 

 

Then he winks, and Fitz, half-drunk as he is, thinks he’d punch him if he had the remotest idea how to hit someone. Instead, he mutters something about finding the loo and slides off the bar stool. 

 

He skirts the edge of the room. He’d like to have a long walk by the river and let the wind wash the alcohol and pulsing music from him. But he can’t leave because Jemma’s still talking to that bio guy. He pulls his glance away from them quickly and scowls. He’s not sure why, but the knot in his stomach tightens painfully at the sight of her practically pressed up against him. 

 

It’s not jealousy. He’s spent many hours trying to prove to himself that it is (because tonight’s not the first night this knot has kept him company), but whenever he imagines himself kissing Simmons, he wants to crawl out of his skin. 

 

It just seems like a very unpleasant thing to do. It shouldn’t, he reasons. She is quite pretty, when he considers it, and he knows she keeps an excellent oral hygiene regimen. Nevertheless, the thought of kissing her makes him highly uncomfortable.

 

So what’s the matter with him then? If  _ he  _ doesn’t want to kiss her or take her out on a date or anything like that, why does he hate looking at her and bio-douche so much? Is he jealous of  _ Jemma _ ? Does he wish  _ he  _ were the one almost making out with bio-douche? 

 

He peeks at them again. Bio-douche fits the bill for attractiveness too, he supposes. Strong jaw, broad shoulders. It’s not the first time he’s wondered if he’d like making out with a bloke. He’s never felt the way other guys seem to feel about girls, really. So it would make sense if he felt that way about guys. It might be easier anyway. He would at least know what to do with himself then, have a community and a label and other people he could relate to. Have an explanation his mother could understand when she got on his case about getting a girlfriend. 

 

But the thought of kissing any of the guys in the Boiler Room including bio-douche is about as unpleasant as kissing Jemma. He tries, scanning the crowd, looking for someone that catches his eye, some spark of the thing that the poets and the tv writers would have him believe unites all of humanity. But anything he comes up with is forced, an echo of a script he’s seen played out a hundred times. 

 

He doesn’t mind looking - at the blokes or the girls. But appreciation from a distance is all that interests him.

He lets his head drop against the wall behind him with a thud and closes his eyes, and that’s when Jemma emerges from the crowd as though out of nowhere, bio-duche in tow. Her hair’s kind of messed up, frizzing in the back, and she looks a little sweaty, but she’s grinning.

 

“We’re going for a walk,” she shouts in his ear above the noise. 

 

“Oh - um,” he’s not exactly sure what this situation requires of him. He doesn’t feel exactly good about letting her wander off into the night with a perfect stranger but he knows her intentions and they definitely don’t require company. 

 

She probably reads the anxiety in his face because she smiles, touches his shoulder in reassurance. “I’ll meet you at home in an hour?” 

 

It’s his ticket to freedom, his free pass to go hide in his room for the rest of the night. 

 

“Yeah - ok - so, see you at midnight?” he confirms, checking his watch. 

 

“At midnight!” she agrees, beaming, and just like that is gone again, tugging bio-douche with her.

... 

 

Three laps of the park near their apartment and the first twenty minutes of episode IV do not help much to clear his head though. He’s so distracted, he misses most of R2D2’s snark, which is definitely his third favorite part of the movie. 

 

He doesn’t want to kiss (or do anything else) with anyone. He doesn’t  _ want  _ to. It’s not that he’s scared. It’s not that he hasn’t ‘met the right person’ yet. He simply, flat-out, doesn’t want to. 

 

So, that brings him back to the question of why Jemma’s sudden desire to kiss someone should bother him. He doesn’t mind other people’s pda. He’s never really taken much notice of it. And he doesn’t like this resentful, undefined upset that’s taken hold of him.

 

The door bursts open at 11:59 on the dot. (Fitz knows because he’s been checking the time every thirty seconds, campus security on speed dial.)

 

He pauses the movie, but she’s still hovering in the doorway talking to bio-douche out in the hall. Fitz quickly looks away, presses play and hikes up the volume a little bit. From the sound of things, she’s accomplished her goal. 

 

Finally the door shuts (with bio-douche on the other side of it, thank goodness), and she kicks her shoes off, drops her purse, and collapses on the other side of the sofa. 

 

“Have fun?” Fitz asks, not bothering to pause the movie a second time.

 

Simmons considers the question before answering. “Yes, I rather think so. We’re going to the new xeno-immunology expo next Saturday.”

 

“Good for you.” He doesn’t like that his resentment has seeped into his voice, but there it is. 

 

Simmons, who had been running her palm over the smooth leather of the couch with an absent smile on her face, looks over at him. “What’s the matter?”

 

“Nothing,” he says shortly. 

 

Jemma bites her lip. “Are you annoyed with me for making you come out tonight?”

 

It’s not that exactly, and he knows it, but dragging him out to a bar only to ditch him wasn’t exactly friend-of-the-year material, was it?

 

“I told you I didn’t want to go.”

 

“It was just an hour, Fitz, and now I owe you.” 

 

“That’s not the point.” He stands abruptly and collects his laptop and the Star Wars DVD from the player. “I don’t fancy being your secret service.”

 

He manages not to slam his bedroom door, but it shuts with a sharp snap. 

 

…

 

It’s the trash compactor scene that triggers the epiphone. Fitz has always fancied himself a bit like Luke. Luke Skywalker saves the galaxy without getting tangled up in a love interest, and Fitz has always liked that. Plus some of his best friends are droids and he built his own lightsaber. 

 

But it’s the trash compactor scene and Han and Leia are so caught up in their Romantic Tension, they don’t seem to hear a word Luke is saying at all until he gets dragged under the surface by the trash monster, and Fitz doesn’t want that to be him.

 

He doesn’t want Simmons to suddenly be obsessed with dating because he doesn’t want to be left behind. Second tier. Replaced.

 

The satisfaction of finally understanding the knot in his stomach is short lived, though. Because there isn’t much he can do about it. If he doesn’t want to be with girls and he doesn’t want to be with boys… who is there left to be with?

 

…

 

There are dinosaur pancakes at the kitchen island when he emerges from his room the next morning. Jemma is washing strawberries at the sink. 

 

“It’s an I’m-sorry-for-being-a-jerk-and-making-you-go-out-when-you-didn’t-want-to-just-so-I-

could-hook-up-with-someone breakfast,” she tells him as he pulls up a bar stool. “There are chocolate chips and everything.” 

 

“They look amazing,” he says, heaping a t-rex and a stegosaurus onto his plate. 

 

“Does that mean I’m forgiven?”

 

“Depends how they taste.” He shoves a large, chocolatey bite into his mouth and nods. “Alright, I guess you’re forgiven.”

 

She beams and takes the seat beside him. 

 

His gusto fades after the first bite, though. “So… are you and bio-douche-”

 

“-Justin-” 

 

“Are you dating?”

 

She turns to him wide, surprised eyes, strawberry halfway to her mouth forgotten. “We’ve spent all of ninety minutes together, Fitz. Of course we’re not  _ dating _ .”

 

She sounds rather revolted by the very term and he chances a glance at her. 

 

“But you’re going to the expo…” 

 

“As two people who are interested in xeno-immunology and possibly going to ‘second base’ afterwards. I think that’s baseball terminology. I still need to google it.” 

 

“So he’s not like… your boyfriend now?” 

 

It doesn’t exactly change anything, Fitz reminds himself. Eventually she’ll probably want a boyfriend and it seems like he won’t. But the fact that the problem may not be as imminent as he first thought eases the knot considerably. 

 

“Of course he isn’t,” Jemma says, finally remembering her strawberry. 

 

“Oh. Good.” He isn’t thinking when he blurts it out. 

She turns sharply towards him again, eyebrows raised. “Good? What is  _ that  _ supposed to mean?” 

 

“Erm -” Fitz stuffs half of a pancake stegosaurus into his mouth. 

 

“If this is some type of chauvinistic -” 

 

“I’m like Luke Skywalker,” Fitz interrupts, which leaves her blinking at him in confusion. 

 

He quickly gulps his mouthful of pancakes and fumbles through an explanation of his train of thought from last night. He hadn’t exactly planned on verbalizing any of this. It still feels personal and a bit embarrassing, admitting even to his best friend in the world that he’s never wanted to shag anyone and that he’s suddenly become afraid of ending up alone with several dozen robot cats he built himself. 

 

But Simmons listens with ernest sincerity, and when he’s finished she’s even smiling. 

 

“What?” he asks. It doesn’t seem like she’s taking the mickey, but he’s ready to be on the defensive anyway.

 

“It sounds like you’re ace,” she says, and she sounds quite eager about it. 

 

“I’m what?” 

 

“Asexual,” Jemma clarifies. “You don’t experience sexual attraction. Or - well there are a lot of different facets to the definition, and a whole fluid spectrum, and of course the split-attraction model to consider - I’ll send you some links later,” she says, seeing his glazing expresion. 

 

“You mean it’s a thing? Not wanting to mash faces or - anything else - with other people?” 

 

“Of course it’s a thing!” She’s beaming again. It feels a little like someone has lifted an anvil from his chest. He has a word after all. 

 

“And… how exactly do you know all about it?”

 

“Well in college when I realized I quite wanted to be stuck in a broom closet with my organic chemistry TA Eliza Burkwell, but also would not say no to it being Tahj Mowry -” 

 

“Tahj Mowry?” 

 

“Obviously my first celebrity crush was Smart Guy, Fitz, I was a prodigy child of the 90’s, but that’s not the point. The point is, I started doing some research. And there is so much more out there than gay or straight. I’m fairly certain I’m bisexual and probably somewhere on the aromantic spectrum although that’s much more complicated to sort out in my opinion, particularly with no dating experience. But there’s a whole community for ace or aro spec people. It’s quite exciting really.”

 

The kitchen suddenly feels much sunnier than it hand only a few minutes before. Simmons doesn’t have a boyfriend. There’s a whole community for people who don’t want to kiss anyone.

 

“And besides,” Jemma goes on, stealing a bite of his pancakes. “Even if I do feel the compulsion to enter into a romantic relationship, you would never be trash compactor Luke.” 

 

“I wouldn’t?” 

 

“Of course not. Who was the person Leia had such a connection with she could feel him across the galaxy? Not Han Solo. Luke always had Leia and Han. They had his back and risked their lives for him and they loved him as much as they loved each other. I’m not going to ditch you for any guy or girl. It’s just not going to happen.”

 

Fitz scoops up another T-rex and stars cutting it up for them. 

 

“Good,” he says. “And I don’t mind being your secret service. For the record. If you want to go out and snog a bunch of strangers, I’ll never mind having your back. Just as long as I get some pancakes in the morning.” 

 

“Fitz,” she sighs. 

 

“Hey, donuts are acceptable too if you don’t want to cook.”

 

“Fitz.” 

 

They grin at each other across the shared plate.

**Author's Note:**

> (For anyone interested, title is from Ingrid Michaelson's song Everybody which struck me at first to embody the broad societal assumption that the desire to be in a romantic/sexual relationship is a univeral feeling, but I also enjoy the loose interpretation of the word love to mean platonic love, companionship etc. Fits both ends to this story.)


End file.
